The Challenges of Connecting with a Dysfunctional Victoria
by Sick Twisted Mind
Summary: Written for 'Mama' of 2013. How Victoria connects with people - Lucas, Annabel, Lily, Mama, Dr. Dreyfuss, her parents or even herself - before, during and after the movie. Basically drabbles on Victoria's life.


_*Sigh* Why has no one written a Mama story yet? I tried to put as many of the character's names in the summary as I could (since 'Mama' produces too m__any unrelated results) with it still making sense. These will be a lot about Victoria and her relationship with Lily, Annabel, Lucas, her parents and Mama. I hope you enjoy._

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It all started when Annabel and Lucas tried to have sex on the kitchen table.

The old wooden thing could hardly hold their meals each evening, so when their combined weight settled on it, the table collapsed, shocking them and forcing a cry of surprise out of both. Victoria, awake in her bed at the time, scrambled down the stairs at the clatter to see Annabel on top of Lucas on top of the kitchen furniture on top of the legs that had held it up for so long.

Annabel was set the next day, scanning something called 'Craigslist' for a new table and found a nice one, light scratches on the surface, but sturdy legs beneath. A deal was made between her and the seller: send the chairs that came with the broken table in exchange for a new one with chairs to match, no money involved.

The chairs were sent off that very day and they ate on a blanket where the table had stood until the new one came in a week later and was loaded into place with the chairs following behind. Victoria had been upstairs the whole time, completing her schoolwork, until she was called down for dinner.

She stumbled in the room and saw the new thing to occupy the empty space of the kitchen and did a double take. It was a dim gray, solid and cold, surrounded by three chairs.

The old table had four chairs.

For the _four_ people in her family.

The four people who occupied the family in Victoria's mind anyway.

But now, they were one chair short, someone wouldn't be dining with them. Someone hadn't been dining with them for several years, but a chair was always there for Lily because Lily, moth form or not, alive or not, was still apart of their makeshift family. A plate was never set for her, her chair was never moved, her seat was never occupied, but it was _still_ there for her.

So they ate dinner, Annabel and Lucas chatting over their art and music and attempted bring her into their conversation, but her answers, short and curt, made them aware she was not okay for conversation. Victoria knew she got like that a lot and they would always let her settle the wrongness on her own, which she was eternally grateful for. Explaining to them why it was upsetting to not have a chair for a non-existing person would make her sound insane.

Which, she probably was.

Victoria offered to clear up the table, clean the dishes and straighten the kitchen out. Lucas and Annabel accepted, understanding her need to be alone and left her to tidy up.

Although the sink faced away from the table that diminished her sister, Victoria could still feel the emptiness the missing chair caused. It just wasn't right. Lily was still apart of them, she should have a place at the table too!

She left the dirty dishes in the sink, she'd get to them later, and scrambled up the stairs, ignoring the questions of Annabel and Lucas. She barged into her room, small but well-kept, and grabbed what she needed and carried it back down with trouble.

"Here, sweetie, let me help you with that," and the weight in her arms was gone. Uncle Luke smiled down at her, not questioning whatever she was doing to help herself.

Victoria smiled back up at him and side stepped him, hopping down the rest of the stairs and into the kitchen where he followed with the object much more easily than she would have.

"Here," her soft voice commanded.

Lucas set it down and Victoria turned to face him and Annabel who stood in the doorway with curiosity.

She didn't wait for them to ask. "Lily," her hands gripped the edge of the kiddie-sized rocking chair, just small enough to deny her access, but someone as little as eternal 6-year-old Lily would always fit in to, "she needs a place at the table too," Victoria's voice cracked at the end, distorting 'too' into a high pitched, broken word. Then the tears started coming - when would she finally run out of tears for her sister? - and Uncle Luke wrapped her in his arms and she sobbed into his shoulder.

Annabel tried to guide her into the chair she brought down but Victoria pushed back, not because she knew she wouldn't fit in the seat. "It's for Lily," she choked out, the heat of her tears steaming up her glasses and blurring her vision, "no one else's seat. Just Lily's."

She collapsed but Uncle Luke caught her like he always did and the three of them crumple onto the floor in a heap, one crying for a loss and two crying for the first. Through the hugs and petting of her hair, Annabel takes away her glasses, now stained with tears.

When Victoria looked up after her crying had subsided, her vision is distorted and weak. One of them whispered "It'll be okay," but she is straining her eyes so hard that her ears can't pick the words up. Surely she was just mad with grief, her eyes just disabled enough to trick her mind, but it seemed so real and she was so desperate for it to be real, that it _had_ to be real.

Across the room, away from all the commotion, so peaceful in its own eerie way, Lily's seat was rocking.

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_I promise not everything will be this sad, but this was the first one I came up with and I wanted to start this up before I began to forget things about the movie. For those of you who are fans of _31 Facts of December_, it seems like it's getting to the point of slower updates. *Sigh* I was going to update tonight, but the idea would take so long to wright and this was so short, don't hate me!_

_Review, what do you think?_


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